‘Ukraine should hold statehood talks’

Russian President Vladimir Putin has urged Kiev to start talks on the issue of “statehood” in Ukraine’s southeast.

The Russian head of state said the talks should be held with the objective of safeguarding the legitimate interests of those people who live there.

He said Ukraine should “hold substantive, meaningful talks, not about technical issues but about the question of the political organization of society and statehood in southeast Ukraine.”

However, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov said later that Putin did not envision sovereignty for the two separatist eastern regions that style themselves as “Novorossiya” (New Russia).

Since Kiev launched military operations to silence the pro-Russia protesters in mid-April, Ukraine’s mainly Russian-speaking regions in the country’s east have witnessed deadly clashes between pro-Moscow forces and the Ukrainian army.

Violence intensified in May after the two flashpoint regions of Donetsk and Luhansk held local referendums, in which their residents voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence from Ukraine.

Putin has put the blame for fighting in eastern Ukraine on Kiev.

“What is now happening, it seems to me, to be an absolutely natural reaction by people who live there and who are defending themselves — they weren’t the first to take up arms.”

HN/AB